#I really like homestuck now that I mention it

[playgroundeyes]

had a breakdown today after having to go to the doctor's and then lots of people shouting in my house when I finally got home but the good news is I'm caught up on ghost eyes again and now I have lots of time to read homestuck!! (time I should be doing homework with but homestuck is more important)

[tiredandoptimistic]

As someone who likes a lot of "bad" media, or media that starts out kinda slow but builds into a bigger plot over time, I see so many different opinions on what bits are "okay" to skip in order to get to the good part, and it's just wild to me. Bouncing around between the highlights doesn't actually give you the experience, and filler is so important when it comes to just...creating a vibe and building up the relationships between characters and with the audience.

For instance, Red vs Blue is probably my favorite show (ever, of all time), and while I will admit that the first five seasons are not my favorite, I still think they're essential to the show, because those five years of relatively low stakes adventures set the tone so that it can be upset by the bigger plot points. The impact of a big twist is reduced if you haven't spent the time to get invested in these characters when they're just hanging out and being silly. Most importantly though, even once the plot really gets going in season six and we get into the more serious Freelancer and Chorus arcs, Red vs Blue is still fundamentally about a bunch of idiots standing around and talking. If you have to force yourself to put up with the majority of the show, then you might just not like this show.

I was talking about this with my friend, and they said it's kinda the same thing with Homestuck. Yes, it does get "better" as time goes on, but it's still the same thing it's always been, and if that's not something you enjoy then skipping to the bits you do like won't change what it is.

Or like, I freaking love The Order of the Stick, and last year I reread it from the beginning for the first time in a while, and I half convinced myself that I'd just made up how good it is (because volume one is funny enough but nothing to write home about). However, I hit a certain point where I realized that I wasn't just reading out of a sense of obligation but because I adore these characters and am unspeakably invested in this plot. You can really tell that it's been a story happening over the course of 20+ years, you can see the writing and art improve dramatically as time goes on. I could just recommend that someone start with volume two or three, and summarize the plot up till then so they don't feel lost. However! That would rob them of the experience you get from watching these characters grow. You can't fully appreciate Belkar's arc in volume six if you didn't see what he was like on day one, y'know?

On another note, I love the Shadowhunters Chronicles, and I know that a lot of people will give The Mortal Instruments shit and call it the worst series or whatever, but those people just hate fun. Yeah, there are other series that might have stronger plots and better writing, but there's a reason that TMI's main characters have been iconic for years. Sometimes, things are just silly, and if you don't like that then you're not gonna have a good time here.

I could go on! I also like a lot of episodic shows like MASH, Community, Tangled: the Series, the whole DC animated universe, Supernatural, etc. I could come up with lists of my favorite episodes to try to hook somebody, but all of those episodes lose a lot of their impact when taken out of context. Skipping the filler doesn't give you the ultimate experience of Only The Best, it takes away your chance to fully spend time with these characters in a variety of settings. And sure, lots of shows with multiple writers do have some episodes that are just bad, but that's not what I'm talking about. There's a difference between something being bad and something being low-stakes. Maybe you personally don't enjoy things that are low-stakes, but that might just mean you shouldn't be watching a sitcom.

So yeah, this has been an excuse for me to rant about things I enjoy for a while but I'm sorta out of time and need to eat lunch, so I suppose this post has reached its conclusion. All my favorite media are my favorite for reasons I couldn't articulate in an elevator pitch, and putting together a highlight reel will never substitute for truly being in the trenches. If you're truly having a good time with something then you won't need to skip to the good part, because the whole thing is enjoyable.

[retros-artandstuff]

vriska + a transmasc dave doodle

[r0semultiverse]

The implication that Terezi is stronger/immune/indifferent to Dirk's narrative writing/reality-warping powers is interesting. 👀

I am so excited for the new writers to explore her character more.

Hopefully this also means we'll be seeing more classpect & god tier power exploration as well!

[anyatomy]

if u dont like homestuck you are going to have to unfollow me bc i am rereading it and experiencing amounts of nostalgia previously unheard of. im going to rb fanart. its a good interesting comic that i like and i am going to be a fan of it. Sorry.

[beescake]

i am in love with your sollux i think

sollux love party :]

if you’re interested heres some of my personal fondness thoughts on him.. big warning for the mega long read ahead aye

as we alr know sollux's rejection of participation somewhat mirrors dave's rejection of heroism, but even without getting cooked to completion i still find sollux's character v compelling beyond the fourth wall

as someone who doesnt get a pinch of that Protagonist Sparkle to begin with, he can openly say he wants to leave anytime…. and unlike dave, he actually Can leave the scene anytime. but he can never be truly Free from the story via permanent character death like the other trolls.

his irrelevancy is indeed relevant - he’s there so u can point him out.

while his image is intended to be a relic of past internet subculture, his role is not only about hehehaha being a Chad or a 2000s cyberforum 2²chan haxxor ragequit gamebro.

his continued existence also happens to add a Bit to the overarching themes of homestuck! a Bit that gives him longer-lasting thematic relevance compared to the trolls who could’ve had more character potential but didnt get to survive beyond the main story.

the Bit in question:

his defiance contributes to the illusion of agency (treating characters = people with autonomy). he’s “aware” of it, and that recognition is worth noting enough to forcibly keep him alive as both reward and punishment.

considering how his personality & classpect is designed its definitely a very haha thing for hussie to do LOL. he’s made to be op asf so he's resigned to doing dirty work, gradually deteriorating along the way but never truly dying. as fans have mentioned before, him openly rejecting involvement after a while of grim tolerance is like if the sim u were controlling suddenly stopped, looked up and gave u the finger while u were step six into the walkthrough for Every Possible Sim Death Animation.

but since he’s just a sim… the more he hates it, the more you keep him around. if ur sim started complaining abt your whimsical household storyline you’d definitely keep that little fuck.

but yeah i like that sollux is just idling. the significance of his presence being that one dude who's always reliably Somewhere, root core Unchanged, no individual ambitions (possibly due to fear of consequence?), and design-wise: a staple representative product of his time.

compared to dirk's character, who has aged phenomenally well into the present (themes of control + AR + artificial intelligence, clearer exploration around navigating relationships/sexuality, infinite possibilities of self-splinterhood and trait inheritance), sollux's potential is really... contained. bitter. defeatist. limiting and frustrating in the way old tech is.

the world continues moving on to shinier, brighter, more advanced automated things - minimalist and metaverse or whatever but sollux is still here 🧍‍♂️ going woohoo redblue 3d. (tho personally i imagine his vibe similar to what the kids call cassette futurism on pinterest mixed w more grimy grunge insectoid influences eheh)

conceptually-speaking,

at the foundation of it all, the rapid pace of modern development was built off the understanding of ppl like sollux in the past, who were There actively at work while the dough was still beginning to rise

thats one of the cool things abt the idea of trolls preceding humans! the idea that trolls like sollux excelled back when lots of basic shit still needed to be discovered, building structures like networks and codes from scratch, and humans will eventually inherit and reinvent that knowledge in ways that become so optimized it makes the old manual effort seem archaic, slow, and labour-intensive.

but despite information/resources/shortcuts being more accessible now, much of the new highly-anticipated stuff released on trend still end up unfinished, inefficient, or expiring quickly due to cutting corners under severe capitalistic pressures

meanwhile, some of the old stuff frm past generations of thorough, exploratory and perfectionistic development still remains working, complete, and ever so sturdy.

those things continue to exist, just outside our periphery with either:

zero purpose left for modern needs (outdated/obsolete)

or

far too important to replace or destroy, bcs of its surprisingly essential and circumstantial usefulness in one niche specific area.

which are honestly? both points that sum up sollux pree well.

dramatic ending sorry. anw are u still on the fence or are u Sick abt him like me </3

[marsti]

"So you see basically after Hiveswap act 1 released they ran into more money problems, so they basically made Hiveswap: Friendsim as a stealth way to finance the release of act 2- well not so stealth anyone could see that's what they were doing but whatever. Then they made Pesterquest with all the recognizable characters and stuff, it was a sequel to Friendsim right, but the problem is Fellow Traveller really mistreated the projects. So for both Friendsim and Pesterquest the writers signed off their writing for like 200 bucks or something and now they're re-releasing to console even though a bunch of shit for the original releases never got fixed! That's capitalism for you. Anyway the real problem is when act 2 came out a bunch of content still had to be cut, and now people had weird unrealistic standards for what the Friendsim characters would be like in-game, let me tell you it was a whole thing. Oh I haven't even mentioned the ties between Pesterquest and Homestuck 2 and how people were mad at it just for that even though Pesterquest really has a lot of other issues-"

[sorrelpaws]

Now that we know you're a filthy homestuck, do you have classpects in mind for Rick, the smiths, evil morty?

youre a sick for sending this ask and im even sicker for thinking about it.

i have veerryyy vague and surface level ideas, these are just things i thought about now so theyre subject to change, but i'll share my initial thoughts because why not

for rick im thinking some kind of mage, maybe mage of mind or light since he's very driven by knowledge umm.... but then again i really like mage of heart as well, since he's so intrinsically tied to and focused on different versions of himself

for morty i like to think heir of breath or life, but im very much leaning towards breath due to how sort of. i guess flexible he is. both in terms of usefulness and personality

evil morty is one that im most conflicted on. im kind of satisfied with her class being knight, but aspect ........ i wanna say either space or rage. space since she is very patient and her whole plan takes years of meticulous planning to execute, very big picture stuff, not to mention her generally apathetic demeanor. howeeevveerrr................ i kind of also love rage ..... since its an aspect focused on drastic changes and strong contempt for whatever seems to be wrong to them. but again im conflicted because emorty seems to be kind of a really good mix of both of these aspects

in any case. there you go. thing i started thinking about an hour ago and havent gotten over since

[relaxxattack]

Now i really wanna hear your take on roses internalised homophobia, pretty please?

tw for mentions of csa and incest (NOT where i thought this post was going to go but it ended up there sorry 😭)

rose employs homophobic jokes for like, the entirety of the first few acts lmao. all of the kids do, because it’s 2009 and that’s just what was funny— but it’s entirely obvious in my opinion that she does not actually “know” her friends are gay, she literally only does it to make fun of them. aka homophobia

of course, this is a really mild form of homophobia that can also be taken purely lightheartedly. but in some of the kid’s cases (cough dave) it’s also really obvious that rose’s playful prodding sometimes actually pressed on things that are genuinely uncomfortable.

eg the page where dave complains about being tricked into getting covered in sex puppets by his older brother (a type of csa he experiences on the regular and is sometimes even filmed for porn websites — something he is only just starting to come to terms with his fear of ) and rose not only bullies him by saying that he probably likes it, but writes shakespearean poetry to him about his puppet assault.

of course, this is fucking hilarious. rose is hilarious. but the joke itself is purely rooted in the homophobic idea of “haha dave wouldn’t it be funny if you were gay”, employed while dave was continuously having his sexual boundaries eroded by an adult man— aka the worst possible time to make this joke. like, it’s a wonder dave even manages to come out as gay by the end of the comic at all, considering his experiences.

and, at the risk of making this conversation even more uncomfortable, i probably should mention that as much as nobody fucking likes it, rose did canonically have a thing for dave in the earlier acts (according to hussie). i highly doubt she actually for real thought he was gay.

aka: by all accounts rose was definitely a homophobic little comphetter at the start of homestuck. but watching her grow out of that is a beautiful thing and we should all cheer and clap for her.

my point is that rose isn’t nearly as all-knowing or based as people make her out to be. she DOESN’T know everything about dave and everyone else, she isn’t able to magically push them all in the right direction for their transitions or sexuality epiphanies. rose is just as confused as anyone! she just acts like she’s not! for fucks sake this is the girl who got tricked by doc scratch and the horrorterrors. literally world’s most obvious traps, she walked right into, smugly thinking she was too mature and above it to be affected.

rose is a child. she’s playing pretend. she doesn’t know shit about fuck about anyone else, and she has her OWN hangups about life and romance she needs to work through before she can be employed as the “therapist friend” for every other character. she might TELL people she’s “very mature for her age”, but all this does is make her a bigger target for manipulation later. because at the end of the day:

rose is thirteen years old. in 2009. she’s gonna have some issues.

[triptychgardener]

I swear to actual Gog no nom-transfem outside of Tumblr actually understands June as a character and it will be the death of me. If I see another cavalcade of people turn up at the slightest mention of her name saying "ohhh I don't see it, I don't think it makes sense, tbh it'd just be better if they didn't at this point" I'm going to turn into the Joker. I read further down on that "June would be better as a trans guy imo I'm not transmisogynistic I mean femtransphobic" reddit thread and it made me want to become a nomad wandering the Appalachian peaks

Yeah like I'm gonna be real. I think entering fandom and using characters as nothing more than a source for projection really screws up your actual reading of the text (said as someone who has done that before!) And if you're unwilling to let go of that interpretation, you're going to be operating in a fundamentally different reality than everyone else who bothers to read the text.

June at this point is on the edge of becoming canon. She's been "canon" for years now, the evidence and reading of June as transfem has been thoroughly documented and discussed. She is a thing. That is happening. And while Homestuck often draws in fandom ideas and discussion, it's rarely going off of things that weren't at least partially in the text themselves.

I don't hold all of Homestuck's text as scripture. My distaste for, say, transmasc Roxy, has been growing as I actually began to read and understand more. And if people want good transmasc readings, there are plenty of great options! Jane, Dirk, Aradia and Nepeta are all wonderful examples of strong transmasc readings. I'd say there are, on the whole, maybe fewer than transfem readings, just because Homestuck is a very transfeminine story. It's about trying to escape and defeat the ultimate force of masculinity that pervades and lords over the story, contrasted by the Space aspect, which has some of the most transfeminine goddamn characters in the whole comic (even a basically canonical one in Calliope). It's a story with Vriska Goddamn Serket in it for the love of god!!!!

Also not to get too deep into the weeds but arguments like "well she actually admired her dad a lot and wanted to be like him" seem to forget the Literal Familial Strife he had with his dad every day, or the fact that his dad always seems to be a bit of a sore subject, or maybe, perhaps, John is not always being one hundred percent honest about his feelings about his father who died when he was thirteen. Honestly, even outside of a transfeminine interpretation, it's just a deeply surface-level reading of John.

[dingodad]

Ok, so this has driven me crazy for the longest time. What the fuck happened to post retcon Japsersprite? The one we know is from pre retcon, since he was on John’s planet when he brought it into the void. Nothing was ever mentioned to happen to post retcon Jaspers, so where is he. I can’t believe Hussie forgot about him, he didn’t forget about the two Nannasprites. Did post retcon Jaspersprite just not exist? Maybe he died on LOWAS when Typheus blew it up, but there is no mention of that at all. I guess only Jade or the Nanna’s would know then, but nothing is ever said about it. Also is there a way to know if the Arquius that becomes lord English is the pre or post retcon version?

i'm gunna play good cop bad cop here cus there's an answer you don't want to hear and then there's a sort of interesting consolation prize answer at the end.

the answer you don't want to hear: it doesn't matter! :P i don't think this really needs explaining but the whole point of davepeta/jasprose's ultimate self spiels is that tying yourself in knots trying to figure out who's "pre-retcon" and who's "post-retcon" is, as they say, for the birds. john is john is john. hussie didn't "forget" that there are supposed to be two jaspersprites: while a story can occasionally get away with having two Daves or two Roses because Dave and Rose have interesting things to say to themselves, the fact that homestuck has even ONE character called jaspersprite simply strains the reader's ability to give a shit. there is the room nor the need for TWO jaspersprites, of all the damnedest things.

(there can be two nannasprites because two nannasprites are funny - but if there's one thing worse than creating the same CHARACTER twice, it's telling the same JOKE twice.)

the other answer is about sprites in particular. do you know why video game graphics used to be called "sprites"? i only thought to look this up just recently: it's because, like the fairies or spirits of folklore from which they get their name, they float above the background of the game world without interacting with it directly. this should form the basis for our understanding of homestuck's kernelsprite, as well, which borrows both from folklore and from computer programming. they are of course ghosts on a literal level, with spritely undead tails and the ability to pass through walls and physical barriers like they weren't there - but the way they interact with the story itself is similarly ethereal-and-or-ephemeral.

sprites appear at the whim of the heroes to serve a very particular purpose - which, you will notice, is exactly what davepeta says they're doing when they show up in hell - but then the moment that purpose is complete they might as well stop existing. dave- and jadesprite show up inexplicably on the battlefield as the reckoning begins: are they killing themselves now that their purposes are complete? where are all the lususprites, anyway; did they do the same thing? erisolsprite initially seems to indicate that he's going to fuck off and possibly explode like all the other sprites who hate themselves, but then just shows up again 200 pages later later at the convenience of the trickster arc. the same is true of all the sprites presumed-dead following the events of GAME OVER, who show up as-needed in the new timeline to form the next generation of redundant ghost freaks. this is simply how sprites operate. whether they're "alive" or "dead" at any given moment is the wrong way of looking at it - they're ghosts for goodness' sake!!

the fact that the story never tells us what happened to "that other jaspersprite" is supposed to make us think less about it, not more, because knowing where one of them is - the "ultimate" one, in fact - should be enough to put our minds at ease. but it also deliberately leaves the door open for another jaspersprite to show up if the story ever somehow, against all odds, finds a place to squeeze one in. which is again exactly what the plot point is currently doing with sprites like erisol, who for all intents and purposes was dead up until the moment page 666 started

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

ik you mentioned interest in writing out how you'd prefer homestuck ended (though obviously time and money makes that impossible lol), and you touched on it in your big eridan essay at the end, but would you ever consider maybe a more detailed outline? i really enjoy your thoughts on the characters and the abandoned plotlines, i'd love to get a little more of an in depth look at how you wish it went down.

Yeah sure!

For those who aren't sure what the hell I'm talking 'bout, please check out my blog and the various essays I've been writing.

Some of it is contingent on stuff I kind of still need to reread so I'm really sorry to the alpha kid likers but I'm still not totally 100% sure where I want to take them. I'm also going to include quite a few personal preference ships; I'm not interested in arguing what other people should ship or about arguing about the course of action for my dumb fanfic in general. I also tend to discover the plot I want while I'm writing it, which I don't have the luxury of here, so... some of it is going to be kind of sloppy. I'm also a big troll stan so unfortunately the kids are a little bit neglected (sorry!!!!). That said.

So the changes would take place directly after GAME OVER, which is personally the point at which I think the truncation/turning on the fanbase really starts - ships start to get turbo-sped at that point. I'm not even saying I dislike JohnRoxy or JohnRezi, but they just feel oddly rushed the way they're handled in the comic itself. IMO, anyway.

There's not too much I would rearrange during this interstitial segment; I think it's important for Jade to have the experience of loneliness, for Terezi to kick off the retcons by only feeling comfortable fixing her own mistakes. Moreover, there's no reason why other characters can't use her mind beacon abilities to ask John to rearrange the timeline, though their attempts, because they aren't backed by Seer of Mind abilities, are a lot sloppier and come with a lot more unforseen consequences.

But something I would change is that Roxy's deal with Nyx is not to just kind of... sit back and chill in non-space while John does all the work; instead, like Rose in Davesprite's timeline, Nyx puts her to sleep, and when the timeline ceases to be, GameOver!Roxy's memories get transferred to Past!Roxy via her dreamself (which wakes up early), fulfilling a "stealing from void for others" aspect of her abilities, and leads to some important interactions later on down the line.

Also, this timeline's ARquiussprite and Gamzee's corpse (heretofore referred to as (ARquiussprite) and (Gamzee)) need to come along for the ride somehow. Maybe they fall through the sky after LOLAR crashes into LOFAF.

This kicks off a series of retcons, as each troll that gets brought back successively asks for another troll/set of trolls to be brought back. This absolutely RIDDLES Act 5 with password pages, can't go two steps without running into a password page, there are password pages within password pages (which IMO is very funny and very Homestuck).

Meanwhile, a couple other plots are running concurrently - the GameOver!crew (heretofore referred to as (Name)) are now in the dream bubbles, completing their character arcs and preparing to defeat LE. Because time and space are weird in the Furthest Ring, every successive meteor trip that occurs as a result of John's retcons is the first time from the point of view of the meteor, but is a repeating event from the point of view of the people in the bubbles - eg those dead god tier Eridan and Feferi wind up healing the Mayor like seven times from their perspective.

(Aradia) is fluttering her ASS off to make sure everyone is in the right "place" at the right "time" for this, lmfao.

Roxy gaining future memories also means that the Alpha kids get to complete their arcs in a way they weren't able to prior to Game Over. Because what John's retcons are doing are functionally whiting out and redrawing the past, the Alpha kids are also only seeing a single linear timeline.

One last arc, which is running concurrent to the retconned!trolls and their new meteor trips, is that bringing back each successive character allows them ALL to grow a little more. So it is NOT like they bring back Vriska, and now everyone's problem are fixed and everything is fine; Vriska's still kind of awful, but she gets better after Tavros gets brought back and they have to character develop alongside each other, and same when Aradia and Sollux get brought back, so on and so on. Because it's about BEING FRIENDS and BEING A TEAM. They're all still having interpersonal problems right up until ALL of them get brought back.

But as a side effect of this and the questing done by the GameOver!crew, the Dancestors get more fully utilized as foils, and get their problems addressed. As the retcon!team goes through their character development, they start to tear the Dancestors apart, because the Dancestors represent shitty parents who force their kids to clean up after their messes, and refuting them works both literally and symbolically as rejecting their irresponsible way of being in lieu of responsibility, accountability, empathy, and compassion.

So here's the series of retcons, and the absolute bullshit that accompanies each decision:

Terezi asks John to save Vriska, and prevent herself from getting too spades with Gamzee, as these are her two greatest regrets.

Pretty much just what her canon iteration asked for; I don't see any problems with the actions she asks John to do for her.

HOWEVER, we'd get more than just a montage of Vriska's time on the meteor, because in this version of events, we're taking our time and letting plot points breathe. Neither does she magically fix everything just by being around when she's very much herself still going thru it by the time the Meteor trip pops off. In any case, she brings with her some new complications:

Karkat still winds up having to play moirail and keep Gamzee calm. This still ends up breaking down by the halfway point of the comic, because they're kind of just not good for each other, but Karkat's personal shitty relationships are going to become A Theme, so it's important to make note of it here.

Vriska and Terezi don't fully make up on this iteration of the trip, since from Terezi's point of view, she was still actively about to kill Vriska before John intervened; however, we get more hints, now that they have to spend three years together, that not only does Vriska really miss Terezi (which is pretty well-established, given how she can't seem to leave Terezi alone), but Terezi actually misses Vriska, too - she's just really bad at separating her own feelings and desires from her instinctive grasp of karma and justice, a very Mind player-type problem to have.

At least with Vriska around, Terezi's able to nip her Gamzee habit in the bud, but this kind of leads to Gamzee feeling worse and more alone.

Something Really Messy happens between Vriska, Rose, and Kanaya when Rose starts her drinking habit, and it's pretty toxic for all involved, and Karkat is kind of stuck playing auspice. Vriska already expresses not liking Rose much and develops some flushed feelings for Kanaya after being watching her murder Eridan, so "It's Really Messy" is kind of all I can say on the matter. The girls are fightiiinnnnggggg

Dave and Terezi get close again, but given the weirdo vibes he notices between her and Vriska, and the fact that he's really not down with quadrants (YET.), means they still end up not getting together.

Sorry DaveKat likers but I am not one. They do not ever get together, so if you are hoping for that, I am sorry and you don't have to keep reading if you don't want to, it's OK.

On a note about Vriska and Terezi - personally, I do think their moirallegiance is endgame; Vriska clearly misses her terribly, constantly trying to bug her into making the Scourge Sisters a Thing again, and she even expresses feeling really bad about the Team Charge Debacle to Terezi explicitly, before directly foreshadowing how awful Terezi will feel after killing Vriska:

AG: Cause even though you got all these highfalutin morals and fancy reserv8tions, you know as well as me that a killer is a killer is a killer! AG: There 8n't no ch8nging your ways for good, and one d8y you're going to flail that silly l8ttle cane of yours and not find n8thin to 8ump into, and fall f8ce first into the shit ag8in. AG: And you're going to do something t8rri8le to some8ody and wish you could t8ke it 8ack 8ut you c8n't!!!!!!!! AG: And then you'll work hard to win 8ack their trust, and you'll try and try and tr8, and you'll see how hard it is! AG: You'll seeeeeeee!

We know that she starts using 8's where they don't make sense phonetically when she gets really agitated, so it's pretty safe to say that she's displaying genuine emotional distress here. When combined with the way she tells John about feeling absolutely horri8le about killing Tavros, it's pretty clear she's genuine about feeling really bad about the Team Charge debacle, and sincere about wanting to somehow make amends and get back into Terezi's good graces, at times trying rivalry, at times trying to prove that she's trying to fix her mistakes.

Terezi also vehemently denies them having a kismesistude and directly mirrors Vriska's hesitance about all the murder:

GC: W3 4R3 SUPPOS3D TO R3V3L 1N BLOODSH3D 4S W3 GROW UP GC: 4ND SH3 S33MS TO B3 3MBR4C1NG H3R R1T3 OF P4SS4G3 W1TH R3CKL3SS 4B4NDON, 4S 1 WOULD 3XP3CT GC: GR4BB1NG TH3 BULL BY TH3 HORNS, SO TO SP34K GC: 1TS 4 L1TTL3 1NT1M1D4T1NG GC: B3C4US3 1M NOT SUR3 1F 1M R34DY FOR TH4T

AG: On my world, I would 8e completely vindic8ed for killing him! He is far lower on the hemospectrum than me. He managed to disrespect me time and time again, 8ut I kept letting him live! In fact, the amount of slack I cut him would 8e considered scandalous 8y those in my class. AG: I had every reason to kill him. And yet... AG: I feel 8ad a8out it like a lame weak fudge8lood, just like he was. AG: And the fact that I feel 8ad is why I'm sort of freaking out right now!

They're basically two toxic girls who CANNOT be honest with their real feelings, and wind up hurting each other. They need therapy badly, but given the fact that they also mirror each other positively - Terezi feels grateful to Vriska for blinding her, and Vriska mentions she ought to thank Terezi for killing her, which set her up on a date with the dead John Terezi also killed - I think they have a lot of potential to be genuinely kind to each other once they work through their individual issues.

Anyway. We're keeping the Roxy stuff under wraps for now - last we saw of her, she went to go see her denizen, and her planet exploded, and John was really bummed about it. HOWEVER, we are going to check in with our GameOver!crew, although only lightly for now:

Meenah and (Vriska) have fully disappeared, and (Tavros), (Nepeta), and (Feferi) are looking for them because they've got the FUCKING TREASURE???

Everyone else from the Game Over timeline has landed in the afterlife, to varying degrees.

Shortly after entering the afterlife, (Eridan) fucked off somewhere to be alone. Last anyone heard from him was (ghost!Sollux) and him being Erisolsprite, but neither (ghost!Sollux) nor (alive!Sollux) have seen him since Erisolsprite died in Game Over.

(Karkat) is also brooding off on his own, feeling really shitty and sorry for himself. He's always felt personally responsible for everything going wrong for his team, and now that his team is basically entirely dead, he feels extra shitty.

Mostly just setting up that these guys are still relevant to the story, despite now being (irrelevant).

That brings us to the second retcon. Vriska obviously had great regrets about killing Tavros, both pre- and post-retcon, so she asks for his death to be prevented.

Tavros is back.

Vriska's requested fix is a very simple one - after all, Karkat makes mention about how Vriska's always had a competitive streak with Terezi, admiring/being jealous of her ability to manipul8 people; I think an ultimate culmination of that is her insisting that insisting to John that he do a retcon to stop her from killing Tavros - which, as covered above, she regrets greatly - but to do a much sloppier job of it, simply having John pop into [S] Wake and knock Tavros the fuck out.

Vriska herself doesn't believe this will have any unintended side effects, because her opinion of Tavros is still really low despite her genuine desire to make amends, and she's wrong.

Tavros's stay on the meteor has a major effect on Gamzee. I'm not entirely sure how it would pan out exactly, but I think Gamzee would step in between Dave and Tavros, into a situation none of them are happy with. This starts Tavros on a path of realizing that his inability to stand up for himself not only hurts him, but people he cares about (Gamzee, whom he ghosted).

Vriska is mostly uninterested in Tavros now, as the moment has kind of passed, and Terezi keeps getting on her ass about going after him (which brings the two of them closer).

Previous Messy romantic situations are still active. Karkat is going thru it.

Dave feels bad about tormenting Tavros but he kind of can't help himself, especially because Tavros keeps going up to him for some reason. The fact that he gets trapped in an auspice with Tavros and Gamzee kind of reinforces that he does NOT vibe with troll quadrants. Dave becomes MORE xenophobic.

On a note regarding Gamzee and Tavros: while I generally try to avoid relying on Hussie's commentary too much, as he likes to play his cards close to his chest, his note about Gamzee in the Act 5 book is actually significant enough to me to include:

The best explanation for why Gamzee says he's scared of Vriska, in my opinion, is this: he's flat-out lying. It's a good way for him to maintain his cover as 'Soft Gamzee.' It also provides some ammunition for those who, against all sense of good taste and judgment, want to continue to believe and assert that Gamzee is a decent guy with sensitive emotions and vulnerabilities before he undergoes his Muderstuck awakening. He was none of those things, ever.

Hussie likes to play coy, and you can't really trust anything he says after Act 6 because he's fed up with the fandom, but I think this comment comes early enough, and is made assertively enough, that it can be taken at face value. I know that "Soft Gamzee" is actually extremely popular in the fandom, so this may be controversial, but I do think there's more evidence for him being kind of nasty and manipulative than not, and having that always be a part of him brings more cohesiveness to his character. For example, he seems to have a pale crush on Karkat, trying to assert that Karkat is his best friend and changing the topic when Sollux gets brought up and he recognizes Karkat is closer to Sollux than him, and if you read his first log with Terezi as if he's hiding being nasty under a soft veneer, then his comments do read as pretty passive-aggressive.

TC: yOu KnOw HoW iT iS wItH fAmIlY. GC: NO, NOT R34LLY! GC: 4DURRRR DURR DURP TC: Oh YeAh... ... TC: I sPaCeD oUt, DiD yOu KnOw HoW bEaTuFuL tHe SoUnD oF tHe OcEaN iS? TC: hAvE yOu EvEr EvEn SeEn ThE oCeAn? TC: oR i MeAn SmElLeD iT... TC: SoRrY. GC: >:[

Maybe most damningly, his narration calls dealing with Eridan's genuine emotional distress "indulge emotional theatrics," an implication of his true feelings. Karkat and Eridan are heavily foreshadowed to be moirails, and Gamzee seems to have a pale crush on Karkat. What does Gamzee do in this conversation? He chases Eridan away from comforting Karkat - using the same excuse as he uses to avoid dealing with Vriska.

CA: put kar on TC: UuUuH, i cAn't rEaLlY ThInK AbOuT InTeRvEnInG, tHe bLaCk fRoWnInG MoThErFuCkEr kInDa sCaReS Me

Moreover, he does NOT seem to like Jack comforting Karkat instead, either.

THIS IS NOT TO SAY I DON'T THINK GAMZEE ALSO DESERVES A SHOT AT KINDNESS AND REDEMPTION. Gamzee is clearly a very troubled youth, between his absentee lusus, his indoctrination into a fundie doomsday cult, and his sopor usage. The fact that having his faith shattered by Dave makes him snap implies that, one, he was already unstable and teetering on the edge, and having his faith fucked with was the last straw, and two, that until he lost that last shred of hope, he was still pretending to be nicer than he was for a reason, and given that his LE worship doesn't start up until after the snappage, I think it can be extrapolated that that reason is that he genuinely wants to get along with his friends.

Given that Gamzee's issues largely stem from his neglectful lusus, it's not a stretch to say that Gamzee does not take well to abandonment and isolation. So here's kind of where Tavros comes in:

Gamzee mentions that he feels "So aT ChIlL WiTh yOu" while talking to Tavros, and Tavros reciprocates the friendship and also - interestingly - acknowledges Gamzee's religion, calling it beautiful even if he doesn't necessarily believe in it. I call it interesting because Karkat's inability to do so is explicitly one of the reasons their moirallegiance broke down. Moreover, in their first conversation together, Gamzee explicitly praises Tavros for his "gumption" for stealing his clown nose, when Tavros's avoidance of his problems is one of his biggest personal issues. So yeah, personally, I'm all for moirallegiance.

But Tavros started ghosting him after Gamzee offered to make out a little, another symptom of his avoidance issues. I'm sure that, even in this meteor trip, the fact that Gamzee killed Equius and Nepeta really scares him. In his conversation with Terezi, Terezi outright says "NO WOND3R V4NT4S C4NT ST4ND YOU"; Equius is constantly yelling at him; lots of people on their team seem to genuinely just sort of dislike him.

CG: MIRACLES ARE LIKE POOP STAINS ON GOD'S UNDERWEAR. TA: eheheh makiing fun of people2 reliigiion2 i2 the be2t thiing two do.

So having one of the few people he does really like also ghost him probably did... bad things to his mental health. Especially so when said person wound up dead. But now that he isn't dead, I think they have a shot - they just need to address their personal problems. Tavros with his avoidance, and Gamzee with his resentment toward the world, and reliance on substances and religion to take the edge off. In this meteor iteration, that doesn't quite happen - their toxic auspicetism succeeds in letting them air out their dirty laundry to the audience, but doesn't bring full reconciliation.

In any case, this meteor trip is fairly short, and uneventful from the dream bubbles side, although I do think Tavros should get a talking-to from (Tavros) about real self-esteem and self-worth.

Still, being back in contact with Tavros again, even if in kind of a messed-up way, does make Gamzee start to reconsider some of his past actions. This brings us to:

Gamzee Asks for Equius and Nepeta back.

Gamzee's not as nice as he lets on, but he does genuinely care about his teammates, and for the people he really cares about, like Karkat or Tavros, I think he's willing to stick his neck out. Bringing back Nepeta and Equius is more for Tavros than himself, really, because Tavros is scared of him for doing that, and he motherfuckin' misses Tavros, okay? John mostly agrees because he's kind of scared of Gamzee.

Some really fun stuff starts happening this go around.

The Gamzee-Tavros situation becomes resolved because this time, Equius steps in as an auspice between Tavros and Dave, and this auspicetism is COMPLETELY HEALTHY (with the bonus of being extremely funny, and what is the point of a Homestuck ship if it is not deeply funny).

Gamzee and Tavros are able to enter into a totally healthy moirallegiance once the auspicetism builds up Tavros's self-confidence, much to Karkat's relief.

Being stuck in the auspicetism makes Dave go crawling back to Terezi on his hands and knees. I'm sorry, Terezi. I'll do anything if you take me back. Just don't let me die as the guy stuck in a threesome with the two worst trolls. Dave has overcome his xenophobia.

Dave and Terezi becoming official does make Karkat sad, however, so when Nepeta finally works up the courage to confess to him, he accepts the offer to date her, thus fulfilling Jaspersprite's musing that she might only be able to date him after she dies.

They also break up. We're keeping up this trend of Karkat and his disastrous relationships. He's still involved in the Rose/Kanaya/Vriska drama, too.

With GamTav and Dave/Tavros/Equius cinched, Tavros and Vriska reach a sort of truce with each other. Not really friends, since they kind of still dislike each other, but Vriska would genuinely be glad to see Tavros getting more actually confident, and muster up the energy to genuinely apologize for almost killing him, so there's a sort of mutual respect there now. Vriska and Terezi are even closer because of this, but still not fully over their problems.

On the topic of the Dave/Tavros/Equius auspicetism: Dave still can't stop bothering Tavros, but the lewdness of it sets Equius off, so he feels like he has to intervene. Dave also can't stop himself from bothering Equius, which ALWAYS BACKFIRES, and since Tavros has a weird fondness/rivalry with Dave, he'd find it within himself to ask Equius to back off (which would work, because of Equius's... Equius). And every time Equius gets too overbearing toward Tavros, Dave feels COMPELLED to intervene, because he's like, my fucking god, you are the two worst trolls, why must weirdos fight. Dave desperately wants out, but he can't stop staring at these two.

And weirdly enough, it's beneficial for all of them. With two people to yell at him for being weird, Equius becomes less weird. With a rival in Dave and more contact with Equius, Tavros becomes more confident. And Dave has two people to rap against and feel good about his art with, something he more or less had to deal with alone during previous trips.

On the topic of Karkat and Nepeta, there are quite a few implications that they wouldn't necessarily work out. For citations, let me just link my Nepeta essay, where I go over what the comic says about their relationship from a storytelling perspective; here, I'll talk about their relationship from a more interpersonal perspective.

Karkat's signals are mixed as fuuuuuuck. While I don't necessarily think this will be an issue for Nepeta, as - as a Heart player - she's preternatually gifted at understanding motivations, the thing is... I think Nepeta can do better, and deserves better, a sentiment echoed by Jasprosesprite^2. She certainly deserves better than being second to Terezi, at the very least, even if she states she likes his outbursts.

And the thing is, Karkat is pretty explicit about saying that he doesn't return her feelings; in a world where they date, there's always going to be a sense that she's his second choice. And, just... my girl deserves better, okay? Moreover, while he respects her personhood, he's also pretty nasty to her when he DOES talk to her, implying he doesn't necessarily respect her choices. And also, she's actually really bad at shipping, so there will be this extremely weird tension of like... a hobbyist vs. a professional. I don't think Karkat would be able to stop himself from mocking some of her shipping choices if she ever opened up to him about that.

But I think them getting together is important for Nepeta, developmentally - I talk about this in my essay for her, but shipping is something I think she does need to outgrow, since it's kind of a replacement she's using for her loneliness. Moreover, I say in that essay that the issues she has in her moirallegiance with Equius warrant relationship counselling - and that's what Karkat is uniquely qualified to dispense, as the team's Blood player. Although they end up not working out, Nepeta would take several valuable lessons from this relationship - that she's kind of bad at shipping, that Equius is being kind of a shithead to her, and that she needs to start making friends with other people.

Now then. We're finally getting into some drama in the bubbles.

Please imagine for me Equius and Horuss talking, and Equius being aghast at the way Horuss is so derisive towards his matesprit and moirail. Now imagine him pulling a mic out of nowhere and rapping at him about how his problem is that he does not respect his partners. Now imagine Tavros and Dave joining in, also out of nowhere, with Tavros adding bars about how the hemospectrum is, not a good thing, he thinks. And Dave adding bars about how he does not have a fucking dog in this race. He's not even a troll. He doesn't understand their hemospectrum. Let him out of here. The fine fucking art of Alternian slam poetry. I think Horuss would start crying. So would I if three people including my grandkid started rapping at me.

Nepeta's uncanny emotional acumen leads to her wanting to befriend Damara, but being unable to speak her language.

GameOver!crew is up to something, IDK, probably showing (Tavros) inspiring people and rebuilding the ghost army, to tell a parallel story to Tavros becoming more genuinely self-confident.

We check in with the Alpha kids, too, who have some group therapy sessions led by Roxy.

Vriska and Tavros confront Rufioh together, a final culmination of their no-longer-enemiesship, and together, they steal Rufioh's ones. Like, Tavros starts speak1ng w1th ones, something he always had in him, and they also roast Rufioh so badly that he stops speaking in ones. But the way it's presented to the audience, Vriska outright just says that Tavros should steal his ones. And Tavros does. This carries over to successive retcons, as it's implied that Tavros just kind of starts naturally being more confident as healthy relationships are established sooner and sooner.

Anyway, a final note about Equius - his problems are mostly due to being sheltered. Although he is probably the most casteist highblood, he's not really that casteist, as what's really going on is just that he's got a BDSM kink. But because he's sheltered, he does not realize that it's a kink. And a fetishist who does not realize that they're a fetishist has more power than God.

His protectiveness of Nepeta does come from a good place; preventing her from playing FLARP was actually in her best interest, given what happens to people who play FLARP. But he's very much going overboard with it, likely an extension of his own lack of understanding of how much sheltering is good and how much becomes detrimental. What he really needs is for someone to point it out to him, which I think he gets via Nepeta or via Karkat, and then have a reaaaaally long think about it. He's genuinely a polite and helpful soul, who doesn't WANT to make people uncomfortable. The auspicetism is very good for him in this regard, as is his moirallegiance once Karkat talks him and Nepeta through their issues.

The point is, once he's forced to reckon with the fact that the degeneracy is coming from inside the house, I think he'd have a LOT of regrets about the way he treated Aradia. Which leads us to:

Whoops That Robot Thing Was Really Inappropriate Huh

Equius approaches John to ask him to make Past!Equius reconsider the Aradiabot Thing. John's getting kind of impatient with all these trolls who keep asking him to go back through time, but given that everyone seems a little happier each time, he can't help but agree.

So he goes back to the past, before Equius can give Aradia her robot body with the love chip in it, and something really fun gets to happen here: first of all, Equius's Void status makes him really hard to place, so John winds up missing by a bit, time-wise, so Aradia's already in the body. This is the first time that retconning!John and Aradia have been in the same place together, and when she meets him and finds out that he can time travel without causing paradoxes, she demands (with her Aradiabot deathmurderkill intensity) to be taken back in time to before she died.

John's retcon powers explicitly ignore the usual rules of paradox space - he describes it as a "fresh start". Given that Breath is associated with choices and freedom, his retcon powers are kind of the ultimate culmination of his abilities as a breath player. Although doomed timelines can and will still result from paradoxes caused by players when John isn't there, anything he directly interferes with is totally a-okay.

So all Aradiabot asks him for is passage back in time, in order to sanction her interference in the past. After she dismisses him, she still more or less has to adhere to events in the original timeline, for two reasons - the first being that she doesn't want to risk a new doomed timeline, and the second so she can keep the timeline predictable.

So even though she's basically asked for passage to the time period before SGRUB, it's basically outright stated that the progression of events has to be more or less the same, up until the point where John's other retcons take place. So here are the cascading effects of Aradiabot preventing her own death:

Aradiabot takes Aradia's place in the Team Charge debacle, being blown up/"killed" (as a sprite) by Sollux's eye beams, so that she can take Aradia's place as Doc Scratch/the Handmaiden's servant and "carry out" their orders.

Meanwhile, Aradia seeks refuge with Equius, whose void powers keep her hidden from Doc Scratch's omnipotence.

Because Sollux never actually killed Aradia, and Aradia communicates with him via Equius's account, Sollux is less depressed and self-loathing. He no longer predicts a future where all of them die and he has to be blinded. It's left deliberately vague whether this future comes to pass because he's less pessimistic, so his Mage powers are calling a happier future into being, or if his future changed, so his Mage powers are prophesying something new.

Nepeta starts regaining memories of alternate timelines and past retcons, as an extension of her Rogue of Heart powers. This includes the relationship counselling she received from Karkat.

Between Nepeta and Aradia yelling at him, Equius's character development starts sooner, so he's squared away for future events, and ends up not making the creepy Aradiabot, making a non-creepy one instead.

Aradia and Equius do not strike up a relationship, and become uneasy enemies/friends.

Aradia secretly god tiers well in advance of Jack's arrival, and meets him at Derse rather than awakening on her crypt there.

Aradia and Sollux continue a loving matespritship, leading to Sollux settling into a moirallegiance with Feferi. He's devastated when she dies, which still happens along with the rest of Eridan's freakout; Aradiabot doesn't intervene because she's needed for:

Aradiabot winds up being the one to sacrifice herself piloting the meteor, allowing Sollux to stay with the rest of the team when he meets up with Aradia, (Aradia), and (Sollux) at the Green Sun. Aradiabot winds up with the GameOver!crew.

With the 1337 hackers back in commission, Sollux and Roxy are able to establish a server connection with each other, allowing them to communicate during the 3-year meteor trip.

Aradia involves herself in the Rose/Kanaya/Vriska Mess, and I kind of can't decide what I like better - a vascillatory pitch/flush threeway between Rose, Kanaya, and Vriska, now that Vriska's near the end of her character development, with Aradia serving as a stabilizing force as Kanaya's on-again off-again moirail, or Aradia stepping in as an auspice. Either way, it's out of Karkat's hands.

This has a knock-on effect of finally giving Vriska the chance to fully make amends with Aradia, which winds up cinching the Vriska/Terezi moirallegiance. The scourge sisters are back baybee. And between a healthy moirallegiance for Terezi and a healthy moirallegiance for Gamzee, I think pitch Terezi/Gamzee could work as a healthy ship this time around. I'm not married to it, but they did always seem to hate each other well before SGRUB.

Nepeta has LEARNED HER LESSON regarding dating Karkat, so that does not happen.

Karkat now has no quadrants. He winds up desperately throwing himself at Sadstuck Sollux to try and help him get over his breakup. It's not a good look. Sadkat. He also takes up talking to the alpha kids for emotional support, which puts them off, too. Still gives really good relationship advice. He's clearly one of the more unstable members of the retcon!crew at this point.

We're light on the dream bubble drama this time around because of how MUCH is happening for the retcon!crew, but there's going to be a reference in there of Nepeta learning East Beforan.

SO. NOTES TIME.

Aradia expresses outright that she hated the feeling that she was set up and that she wishes someone would have stopped her from being so reckless. And although she seems to find some satisfaction in being the stewardess of the afterlife, there's clearly some resentment there that she's been forced into that role, as she expresses that what she's really looking forward to is watching it all break apart. There's also kind of an orphaned plot thread where Aradia is spending a lot of time in the afterlife putting knowledge together, which never really directly pays off except to the audience, and I think a really good way to bring that back in would be for her to be communing with (Aradia) in the dream bubbles in order to make sure the timeline flows as smoothly as possible.

As for Aradia/Kanaya - they're actually really good friends, and Aradia expresses that she's flattered that Kanaya wants to talk to her so much. There is a tone here that matches the way Vriska thinks about Kanaya when Kanaya is still ostensibly Vriska's moirail, and Kanaya herself admits to being attracted to people who are reckless. In fact...

AA: i just wish AA: back when i was behaving recklessly AA: i had s0me0ne t0 tell me t0 st0p listening AA: even if i ended up ign0ring their advice AA: it w0uld have been nice

GA: It Must Be A Certain Madness Im Afflicted By GA: To Orbit Those More Reckless And Dangerous Than I And More Daring For It GA: I Guess I Want To Help Them But They Never Can Be Helped It Seems

So I'm just kind of saying... Aradia and Kanaya moirallegiance... is not entirely unfounded. And a moirail stabilizes a troll's other relationships; if we have a moirail for Kanaya and a moirail for Vriska, then the Mess that is whatever's going on with Kanaya, Vriska, and Rose would probably resolve itself, I think. Either way, Rose is surrounded by SUCH a girl's night of emotional support to help her with sobriety now.

As for whatever's going on between her and Equius, I tend to believe the comic when it tells me relationships don't work out, and Aradia expresses regret for kissing him during the Ministrife. I think they could be good vitriolic frenemies, though.

Okay, onto Sollux.

In the same panel where Eridan and Karkat are implied to be "hatched for each other" pale-wise, Feferi and Sollux are foreshadowed in the same way:

They also spend a LOT OF TIME curled up in a pile together talking about their feelings, which we don't see with matesprits, but we DO see with moirails. Nepeta and Equius do the same thing, and they are kind of THE moirails. So I think Sollux and Feferi were always meant to be pale, but because Aradia died, Sollux wound up taking Feferi on as a matesprit instead. Between EriFef, SolFef, and GamTav, people getting flushed and pale feelings entangled is like, a Running Thing, so it's not really surprising to me.

Now, here's the thing. We already know that Sollux likes to cope with a rebound, since he went flushed with Feferi after Aradiabot exploded and was presumed dead. And Karkat cares very fucking much about Sollux, to the point where Gamzee speculates that he's actually Karkat's best friend, and Karkat even calls him that (although Karkat also kind of just calls anyone his best friend, lol).

CG: GAMZEE WAS MY VERY GOOD FRIEND, WHO WAS THIS GOOFY LOVEABLE BULLSHIT CLOWN UNTIL HE WENT PSYCHO AND KILLED SOME PEOPLE. I LIKED HIM A LOT. CG: I DON'T KNOW, I GUESS MY BEST FRIEND IS REALLY JUST THE GUY WHO I HAPPEN TO BE FEELING MOST SENTIMENTAL TO AT THE MOMENT, IS THAT A FUCKING CRIME.

This crab's got so much love in him. In any case, I mostly just want to keep sticking Karkat in these extremely unhealthy relationships for a while. It makes it sweeter when he finally winds up with Eridan LIKE HE WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO... but yeah.

Cross-session communication is also entirely possible, as Sollux set up chat clients between the trolls and the kids in the first place, and even without that, Kanaya found Rose's old GameFAQs on a server in the Furthest Ring. With both Sollux and Roxy on the case, there's no way they can't somehow establish communications way sooner.

Regarding Nepeta regaining her memories, let me once more point you towards the Nepeta essay. She's on track to become the one who attains Ultimate Selfhood, and comforts people like Jade and John about not really knowing their friends or being lonely.

But yeah, obviously Sollux asks for Feferi to be brought back.

F-EF-ERI!!!! 38D

Mostly Sollux just asks to be prevented from provoking Eridan so harshly. Eridan still winds up blowing up the matriorb, and thus, still getting killed by Kanaya in retribution, but this means that Eridan is now the only member of the team left dead.

PITCH FEFNEP. PITCH FEFNEP. PITCH FEFNEP

Pitch FefNep leads to Feferi letting slip something casteist where Sollux can hear; he doesn't personally care because he's heard much worse, but puts them on a break while she sorts herself out. They get back together after that.

Karkat alone :'( he's mostly just talking to the alpha kids at this point, trying to hide from all the happy fucking relationships happening all around him.

If the last retcon was really heavy on the retcon!crew, then this one is much more about what's happening in the bubbles. We get most of our dancestor development this go around. Do not read if you like the dancestors! I go very in-depth about how most of them are horrible people on purpose here, so their arcs are mostly about them being pulled up on their abject awfulness.

Nepeta, who has learned East Beforan, is able to talk to Damara and have an earnest heart-to-heart with her about how awfully she was treated. They hug and cry. Damara, finally validated, gives everyone a big middle finger.

Feferi heals Mituna's brain injury, because literally why the FUCK has nobody else done that. Now once more in control of his faculties, he breaks up with Latula, pissed off that she took advantage of him all those eons to boost her own ego. He also gives everyone a big middle finger. Damara steals her skateboard and high fives Mituna.

Porrim's basically the only dancestor who grew as a person so I think she mostly escapes unscathed.

Latula gets chased around by Sollux and Aradia, who basically just bully her for being bad at games. This is a date to them.

Gamzee completely refutes Kurloz, with his newfound clarity about the real miracle being friendship and the real dark carnival being the world he and his friends will build, not that LE noise.

In a double team between Terezi and Rose, Meulin gets eviscerated for the way her own Issues have made her ships deliberately awful, that she could have simply Not, and she has a bit of a breakdown.

As Feferi is grappling with her privilege and internalized casteism, Cronus wanders up to try and hit on her, and she goes "oh my god... when people look at me, are you what they see? A friendless loser that nobody likes? A total waste of seawater who's only pretending to be cool with the lower castes? A totally fake poser? 38(" Cronus just goes "..." and starts crying and Feferi ends the convo oblivious to that, just going "wow... thanks for talking with me! really gave me a lot to think about" imagine how funny it would be -

Karkat finds and talks to (Eridan), where he fully admits to missing the guy. His mopiness is so extreme that (Eridan) takes issue with it and punches him, before basically yelling at him to get his shit together. Karkat then yells at HIM for him to get HIS shit together, and they both leave, intent on getting their shit together.

We also get an update on Vriska and Meenah at this point, where Meenah is starting to seem more into how they totally ditched their responsibilities than Vriska is.

So the thing with this update is that most of the trolls have sorted their shit out; even Karkat has had a lot of introspection about how he really just fucking loves his friends and should have been more honest about it, not worried so much about appearing weak or lame. With the double Aradias in play to kind of handwave that the timeline will be stable because they're ensuring all loops get completed and all necessary conversations happen, and with everyone's successful relationships on display, we can kind of truncate the next leg of the journey:

Karkat Fixes Everything

Karkat is the Friendship Troll. Karkat is the Romance Troll. Karkat is the Bonds troll. He is their team's Blood player, and as the Blood player, he's been shown to deeply love all of his fucking friends - yes, even the assholes. Maybe even especially them.

As such, it's vitally important for the last push - last leg of the journey - to belong to Karkat. Where would our Blood player be without his bonds? Well, we actually have the answer to that. It's knocked out and prevented from joining in any of the important boss battles. LAME!

So in the last retcon, Karkat hears from Nepeta about the retcons that have been happening, and he really starts digging through his own past. If every retcon so far has been each troll only feeling comfortable undoing their own personal mistakes, then what of the guy who feels personally responsible for everything, all the time, forever?

Look, I'm not saying that a shipping chart saves Homestuck, but... by the time this last retcon is through, every Alternian troll is alive and god tiered. And he is dating Eridan.

If you have any questions about him dating Eridan, please refer to the link above. That essay is nearly as long as this one. There's SO MUCH FUCKING FORESHADOWING.

I don't think the god tiering needs to be explained, because if we hear that Karkat basically made his past self a shipping chart, and we've seen everybody's character development as they've gone through this journey, and we have Aradias on timeline duty and Nepeta with memories of past retcons and her alternate selves, I think we can more or less gloss over exactly how they go about earning their wings while maintaining timeline integrity. The important thing is that Karkat is dating Eridan now.

Because that leads to the last few bits of dream bubble stuff, but before we get into that...

Miscellaneous Plot Things That Need To Happen But I Don't Know Where To Put Them

Yeah there's just some ideas that I have floating around that need to be placed somewhere but IDK exactly where, or exactly how they shake out.

Hal becomes a real boy. And by that I mean as part of their character development, Jake makes Hal "real" a la brain ghost Dirk, and then the rest of them have to scramble against the clock (Jake's ability to maintain Hal's realness) to god tier him and make his existence permanent. He's a Sylph of Mind, which allows him to negate Condy's mind control. And maybe a GCATboy?

(Tavros) becomes the new leader of the ghost army.

Davesprite winds up dead at some point in the bubbles and doesn't explain how he died, but he and (Dave) get to fight each other and hash out their Realness and Relevance issues, before facing their final boss fight as bros once more.

Jade and Nepeta get to talk, and Nepeta gives Jade the reassuring speech about Ultimate Selfhood and how she won't be lonely forever. Maybe it's flushed. Might leave it ambiguous.

Somebody needs to auspicetize Dirk and Jake holy shit. Dunno who. Maybe Karkat, but I kind of like him pitch with Dirk, so IDK really.

Dad needs to die. Sorry Dad. If I can find a way to kill off all of the sprites besides ARquiusprite, I will. It's explicitly stated that sprites are drawn to the battlefield during the Reckoning, presumably to die, as part of the coming-of-age themes - losing one's guardians. It's sad but it's gotta happen.

All the Godtier!Calliope stuff basically happens as-is.

Can you tell I need to do more research on the alpha kids...

Ok Back To Karkat And Eridan

I think I'm going to leave their moirallegiance fairly ambiguous, but when Eridan is brought back, he and Karkat are basically together all the time. Karkat's signals are mixed even on the best of days, so I don't know how easy it'll be to tell that these two assholes slinging death threats at each other are pale, but *I* will know, and that's what matters.

This leads to the last two dancestor takedowns:

Karkat and Eridan (mostly Eridan) round on Kankri. Eridan calls him SO MANY SLURS. The fact that Karkat not only condones this, but is DATING ERIDAN, kind of makes Kankri lose it a bit.

(Karkat) and (Eridan), who have reconciled in the bubbles, finally find (Vriska) and Meenah. (Karkat) gives the two of them the speech that retcon!Vriska gave (Vriska) in the comic's original ending, but this time around, (Vriska) actually agrees with him. This serves as a conclusion to (Karkat) and Meenah's arc, and causes Meenah to feel so bad that she walks back to the other dancestors in shame, as (Vriska) leaves with him with the treasure to finally fight LE.

When Meenah returns to the dancestors, the first one she finds is Aranea, who's really sad about her own little escapade, blaming herself for the way Game Over went. This prompts Meenah to go, no, it was probably my fault, shouldn't have let you run off like that. And this would, from all the sobbing dancestors, prompt a string of "no, I'm the reason we failed"s, eventually culminating in Meenah rallying them together to do one last good thing before everyone gets sucked into the black hole and go join the fight against LE. Everyone agrees.

(Gamzee) is revived by the life players and cursed with immortality, so he can go on to become LE and complete that time loop. He is immediately locked in the fridge. This is also why he can't fucking die no matter what you do to him.

This also leads us into the final boss fights.

VS. CONDY

The twelve trolls. The Condesce represents tyranny, the worst aspects of the trolls' old society, and as such, is most thematically taken down by them. While she did fuck up the alpha kids' lives, too, I just personally think it's so much more thematic and satisfying to watch her be beaten down by the trolls.

VS. THE THREE JACKS

The eight kids plus Hal plus Davesprite. With Bec Noir specifically, it's fucking PERSONAL, as this guy killed their parents. This is where Dave fulfils his destiny of killing an iteration of English with his sword, when he decapitates Jack English; the person in the middle of that sandwich is Davesprite, which is how he dies and winds up in the bubbles. The iteration of Jack that survives to date Ms. Paint is Spades Slick, as he's the most sympathetic out of all of them and didn't kill anybody's parents.

At some point during this fight, I like the idea that they get zapped away by Jack English, John zaps them to the Godtier!Caliborn fight where he gets sealed in the juju, and then we cut back to the fight with Jack English, where, inexplicably, they all zap right back in.

VS. THE FELT

The spares - ARquiussprite, (Gamzee) in the fridge (who has since been revived by the life players and blessed/cursed with eternal life so he can go on to fulfill his role in the timelines and become part of LE), Dad, and the other sprites (if any of them are left alive).

VS. LORD ENGLISH

The GameOver!crew, the ghost army, the dancestors (they have a Big Damn Heroes moment right near the end, buying Jake time to deploy the Weapon), Aradiabot, and Davesprite.

Jake fulfills his destiny to defeat the Lord of all Angels by being the one to deploy the weapon, which deposits the beta kids, who knock LE in to the black hole. They then zap out of there, collecting the alpha kids from after the Caliborn fight, and zap back to the fight with the Jacks.

This specific configuration of boss battles winds up leaving Lord English entirely up to dead characters, who are then implied to all eventually get sucked into the black hole - their memories to live on through the living characters via Ultimate Selfhood, which only Nepeta achieves on screen, but implies that they will all achieve eventually.

It's important to me that the GameOver!crew is the one leading the fight against Lord English, as they're the ones who were the most screwed over by LE and his machinations - manipulated into killing each other, used as servants of his will, dying ignobly in a doomed timeline filled with special stardust. Meanwhile, the retcon!kids and trolls prove what they've learned - about compassion, kindness, equality, and forgiveness - by beating the shit out of the Condesce, who represents the horrors of Alternia, and the Jacks, especially Bec Noir and Jack English - the latter of which is a shadow of what Lord English represents - immaturity, cruelty, hatred - and the former of which is a culmination of all the failures they committed to get to this point, a symptom of their universal cancer.

I wrote a little snippet of Aradia once, and I think I'll use that to end this essay:

(ARADIA): ok now that we are all done being stupid (ARADIA): im sure enough people here remember the plan that i dont need to explain it again (ARADIA): so instead i just wanted to say (ARADIA): leave your backs to us and face forward without fear (ARADIA): the dead and irrelevant will slay the demon of double death while you unmake the threats of the living (ARADIA): and personally i think it's very fitting that he will perish here as nothing more than a bad dream (ARADIA): this will be the last time we see each other (ARADIA): so on behalf of everyone that you are going to be leaving behind (ARADIA): live (ARADIA): and be happy!

[nekropsii]

Atomic Ask Bomb 4!!

This is a bunch of lighthearted haterism! Well... "Lighthearted" as in it's just a bunch of quippy bitching, not "lighthearted" in its subject matter. Same shit as always!

Content Warning: Long, Discussions of Abuse, Transmisogyny, Ableism, Pedophilia, Mentions of Incest, Bestiality.

True. At least I don't have to start doing unironic Freudian analysis just to feel like I've said something new and interesting about my specialty cast.

It's weird, because there really is a lot that isn't said about the Main Cast - a lot of which is really interesting - but... People would rather die than put serious, grounded thoughts into these characters, it feels. Especially if the topic is even vaguely uncomfortable. So, you get some nonsense on how there should have been menstruation in Homestuck, or that Eridan was never intended to die, instead of putting any serious analytical thought on Dave's abuse, or Jake's relationship with gender.

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In some places, they're even worse. Not because anything has changed, but because some issues have been made more visible by the change of landscape on Tumblr.

Like, people have way more points of entry to be Transmisogynistic, for example. The Homestuck fandom has always been Transmisogynistic, of course - March Eridan... Certainly exists - but now we've got more people talking about Roxy, about Dave, about Jake, about Calliope, about June... And while the level of Transmisogyny hasn't really changed, per se, it's hard to deny that it isn't more commonplace, in a way, purely because the amount of discussions surrounding Transfemininity has increased.

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CroTuna fans need to pick a fucking struggle that isn't that lame ass hill they've chosen to die on. Can you do something else, instead? Can you think liking Bluey is praxis or something? Literally anything is better, because literally anything else is funnier.

I'm not really super into AraSol or anything, but how can you be down to clown with CroTuna and not fuck with AraSol. Do you just want to crank your meat to abuse? What? Lmao.

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No one's normal about Personality Disorders. Cluster B Disorders especially get the shit end of the stick. It's unsurprising that the Homestuck fandom isn't normal about Personality Disorders when literally no one else is, for some reason.

It's just crazy watching people try to have you take them seriously and not look at them like they're fucking insane when they talk about their analysis that Cronus has NPD because he's terrible and abuses people. Like, what are you saying? Do you hear the words coming out of your mouth?

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Dave generally keeps all of his most intimate relationships pretty private, it's why it's kinda hard to keep up with his love life in canon. He grew up under the lens of countless cameras for the pleasure of prying adult eyes. Voyeurism is a huge part of his story, as it is a strong aspect of the abuse he faced growing up. Particularly, said Voyeurism was a key part of the sexual abuse he was subject to.

The fandom's handling of DaveKat feels like Voyeurism because so much of the fandom is dedicated to showing them in intimate scenarios that just feel... Wrong to see. Like, you just know for a fact if this was happening in the comic, we wouldn't be seeing it. Some even have whole blogs dedicated to those kinds of private moments they'd have behind closed doors. The fandom eats it up and calls for seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths - with a nigh fetishistic fervor. Sometimes, it's really hard to not feel like they're in Bro's sleazy live chats, asking to see more of the cute young one.

Even PostCanon frames the rabid consumption of DaveKat content as Voyeuristic. It's not a difficult or out of pocket read, I don't think.

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I think the secrecy of it all is fitting, personally. The hints we did get of the dynamic certainly don't sound very pleasant, though, much to the fandom's chagrin. On screen Kurloz & Mituna interaction would likely just be more Mituna Abuse Simulator.

And, no, I don't think she would be able to do that.

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The issue is that Cannibalism is largely something used not as an expression of Control Issues, but as an expression of Consumption.

Consumption is a really interesting theme to me in fiction. It can mean a lot of things and be shown in a lot of different ways - possessive love, caves, abuse, codependency, capitalism, so on and so forth - but... It's just... Honestly completely nonexistent in Dirk and Jake's relationship. That's why it feels forced to me. I just genuinely don't know where people are picking up the theme of Consumption, especially hard enough to start talking about Cannibalism as a natural extension of it.

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That's the Heterosexual Incest Exception, babey. It's the Spiders Georg. It doesn't count. People are always gonna have the Heterosexual Incest Exception, because they physically cannot help themselves but jerk it to little girls getting molested by their dad or something. It's awful, but it is unfortunately true.

That said, if anyone pulls that kind of shit with Sovereignstuck, I am personally banning you.

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See, Vriska fans aren't in denial - they know she blows, that's the appeal. They're just tired of people acting like it's the end of the fucking world, or like she's the worst person in the comic when Cronus exists. Who is, ironically, exactly who you're talking about, lmao.

You know that meme that goes "You guys would fuck a fence if it was white"? That, but it reads "You guys would forgive anything if a white man did it". If you're a skinny white man in a piece of fiction, you apparently just have a free pass to do and say literally fucking anything. It's actually genuinely insane. People will gaslight themselves so hard into thinking that skinny white man is hot and did nothing wrong, even when the whole function of his existence is that he totally and completely sucks and is entirely irredeemable and has never been sorry for anything he's ever done in his life and never will be, and is 100% aware of the fact that what he's doing is abusive and simply doesn't care. It's nuts. It's so nuts. What are you guys TALKING about.

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[Writing in notebook] Modern AU Cronus... Is Jeffree Star... Got it!

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Look, man. I've seen some shit. You have to understand how much I could fully see that happening. I flinched because it's realistic. Do you know how much Bec/Jade content there is? Help me.

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"Indirectly".

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Kankri even takes part in being Ableist to Mituna. It's crazy. They're fucking tag teaming to make Mituna's life as miserable as possible.

Really funny that people still take him as the good and correct guy when he's an Ableist Stalker that doesn't think Misogyny is real. This is the guy whose hill you're willing to die on? Get real!

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He's a great source for conflict. Excellent torture device to have primed in the toolbox of narrative crafting.

Completely intolerable as a person. He should actually genuinely go to jail. That's not a joke. He's literally a repeat sex criminal.

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It is so fucking funny watching people act like they would've been any better than her. Like, no, I can assure you that if you were walked on and ignored to the degree that she was, for the amount of time that she was, you'd start smashing planets together, too. No one here is better than Aranea. Aranea handled that shit better than a saint would.

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Can you believe people act like the past was better? Lmfao.

We've made at least some decent strides in making sure the fandom is at least a little safer. Don't know why people are looking at a sordid past littered with terrible behavior and and an intense amount of porn of children and unironically parroting that cute little fascist "Reject Modernity, Embrace Tradition!" meme. What the fuck are you on about?

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We can't fucking win. Either we have to sit in a little pool of the same 15 guys and never really get anything fresh on the table, or we can bait new people in and suddenly have to deal with a million people calling WV "The Mayor" and condescendingly calling everyone whiny bitches when you correct them or literally defending segregation in your notes or something.

That last one isn't a joke. I've literally had people defending segregation in my notes because I pointed out that it's weird as fuck that the Racial Kingdoms exist in PostCanon. They started going on about how it's okay because they all "have different needs" (so do humans?) and "Carapacians can't talk anyway" (yes they can??) and "Consorts are biologically stupider" (WHAT). Like. Holy shit. You should get hit by a car.

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Your honor, he never even did all that shit!! Get your facts straight!! Stop getting all your info from 23rd-hand sources!! Think for yourself!! AAAAAA!!!!

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[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 17/7

@shelbybunny asked: a note most people havent noticed from my observations: kanaya tied eridans cape around her stomach wound

Kanaya absorbs the fashion sense of anyone she slays. She's basically a goth Kirby.

@deshah asked: I have caught up on reading your live blog just as you reach one of my favorite action sequences! Kanaya is brilliant and I am so excited that you are reaching this point in her story. On an Aradia note: I think that you should listen to '(kind of) still alive' and 'Almost There' Aradia version (in that order) because feels. You have motivated me to listen to homestuck parodies again. Not to mention revisit my (many, many) homestuck crossovers… Thanks for the liveblog, it is so much fun! Also i saw your recommendation list was missing hemostuck which is just such a shame. I think it constitutes spoilers? Although it is very AU. That one is by roachpatrol and urbanAnchorite on ao3. Also! Space Bro by JumpingJackFlash, also on ao3 (definitely spoilers) there's even a song about that one! I hope these are okay to send? I'm not 100% on the etiquette. Anonymous asked: howdy wert! dunno if you answer stuff on this blog still but I figured it wasn't fit for the main one -- in your long break, did you check out any of the various media recommended to you? :0 (<- totally didn't recommend something and definitely isn't now wondering if you read/liked it, unlikely as it may be with the long list of recs)

I've added them all to the list! Feel free to recommend anything else, too - but I probably won't get to any Homestuck fics for a long time, since they're a bit of a spoiler minefield.

So far, the only recommendation I've followed up on was Hollow Knight - and I'm glad I did. I've played it, like, three times now. If your own recommendation isn't a Homestuck fic, let me know!

@segfaultvicta asked: i just found your liveblog and I've been doing nothing but reading it since. i have no idea if it's complete, if it's stalled out somewhere, or if it's ongoing, or when it started; i have deliberately kept all of this information from myself, i just hope that regardless of anything else your asks are still on so i can tell you how absolutely fucking MAGNIFICENT your analysis is and how much of a joy it's been to read. bravo. <3 @segfaultvicta asked: there are so many things that you're correctly understanding, or at least digging into at the right level and with the correct approach vector, that it took me MONTHS of puzzling out and later information to grok, and i'm good at this kind of nonsense. it's WILDLY impressive even if/when you are barking up the wrong cosmic apple tree. this liveblog continues to be an utter delight.

Hell yeah. Welcome to the show!

It's a great motivator, knowing that there are people having this much fun with the blog. Sometimes, on quiet days, I'll notice my notification counter is ticking up by a couple of notes a minute or so - and 90% of the time, that means someone's just discovered the blog, and they're binging the whole thing.

That's so cool, I don't even have the words! I look up to binge-worthy livebloggers!

Anonymous asked: Vriska really do be the kinda person who's like "I love a woman who can kick my ass." She probably only saw Kanaya as a potential matesprit after she proved herself powerful. Before that, she likely didn't view her as one because she saw her more like a harmless 'mcfussy fangs'.

You could have had it all, Vriska - if you'd only turned to look at her.

Truly, you are your own worst enemy.

Anonymous asked: I'd like to just adress the fact that Eridan, the troll who had 'aspirations' of killing every troll below him on the hemospectrum, only permanently killed the SINGLE troll that was above him on the hemospectrum. Good job, Ampora! ~DJ @manorinthewoods asked: It's comical how pathetic Eridan was. He seems to have power but it's always immensely fragile. Pathetic in life, pathetic in death, pathetic in ancestry. It's no surprise that his final step in the dance is to be sawed in two to prove Kanaya means business. ~LOSS (20/6/24)

Dude took more Ls than a Countdown contestant. Seeing Feferi confront him in the Bubbles is sure to be cathartic, and I, for one, cannot wait.

@manorinthewoods asked: Who the hek coded Trollian. ~LOSS (2/7/24)

That's Sahlee's endgame, naturally. My fic will be as self-fulfilling as Homestuck proper.

@bladekindeyewear asked: Quote you: "You Want An Auspistice? Then I’ll Give Your Legs Some Space From Your FUCKING TORSO" Funnily enough, on Andrew Hussie's ask blog back then, he ALSO jokingly described this well-justified murder as Kanaya auspisticizing between Eridan's upper and lower torso, after forcibly auspisticizing her way through the rest of the showdown members. "Putting Space between them" is a nice added pun of you though!

Hehe. I didn't originally intend to make an Aspect pun, but I noticed after I'd written it, and decided to leave it in.

Anonymous asked: "If the Bubbles do preserve doomed souls, then we might also run into […] the Jade he couldn’t save. That’s a pair of ghosts I’d be very interested to meet." Are we sure a doomed Incipisphere would have resulted in a doomed timeline on Earth for Jade to die in? Dave and Rose said as soon as John went off to die, they never heard from Jade OR THE TROLLS again. Karkat told John during ectobiology that Earth was a divorced temporal context from the kids' game outside of chat/timing convenience.

Yeah, I think there's a decent chance of that. It was weird that the stranded Future Jade never tried to contact her co-players, and one of the simplest answers was that she'd simply stopped existing. I live in hope, though!

@elkian asked: A really interesting thing I've noticed about Homestuck (lampshaded by Hussie's commentary) is how often the perspective switches away from fights, usually so smoothly or jokingly it's not obvious. I've heard the Hobbit/LotR books do something similar. We don't see Bro die, his opponent becomes unkillable by him and he's dead a few pages later. The Trolls' Black King, the Guardians' deaths, etc. It's a very interesting narrative choice. @elkian asked: belated followup to last ask ig - not sure what the given reason was but I think Hussie avoids showing us fights with foregone conclusions unless there's a good story reason. We know the trolls beat their BK before we even met all the trolls (and obscuring that fight lets Hussie pull fun things like the Bard of Rage reveal). Vriska vs Tavros was never in his favor, but it meant something for their character development so we saw it, etc.

Yeah, I really liked how this was done with Bro, specifically.

Cutting away from this confrontation highlighted how completely pointless it would be to depict it. We all know what happened here, and seeing it happen would give us no new information. Bro, like any mortal, was instantly one-tapped.

Besides - we saw the end of that fight.

It ended right here.

Anonymous asked: its funny how dd, the character associated with diamonds, is textually implied to be jack’s moirail ‘lousy dignitary, keeping your murderous tendencies in check’ Anonymous asked: I feel like you probably noticed this and just didn't say anything, but it's still so hilarious to me how clear it is that Andrew Hussie knew exactly what he was doing showing us the walkie-talkie scene just now with DD and his diamond card suit symbol "keeping [Jack's] murderous impulses in check"!

Damn, I actually didn't pick up on that. It's consistent with the rest of the Crew, though - Hearts is a romantic shipper, and Slick is all about hate. It seems CD is destined to become a mediator.

@mhafanlol2000 asked: What do you think LE looks like?

Occam's Razor would suggest he's a Felt creature - but since Jade would be 'terrified' by his true name, I suspect he's actually someone we've already heard of. After all, Jade would have no reason to be terrified of a name she doesn't recognize.

Anonymous asked: what if sburb is modded minecraft

tired: joining the wertsearch gigasession wired: joining the wertsearch minecraft server

Anonymous asked: Oh yeah we've all be there, I remember one time I got really obsessed with tinkercraft, not cause of the actual crafting system, but because of the furnace, and decided I Must build a furnace from bedroom to build height and fill it up

Update: I've built two nuclear reactors so far, for fusion and fission respectively. Between them, they produce a gargantuan amount of power, but that's only secondary to their main function - namely, antimatter production. Once I get that sorted out, we'll be, like, 5% of the way to the AllTheMods Star, which will finally allow me to make Creative Mode items.

Then we're starting on the Gregstar. If you don't know about the Gregstar, you don't want to know about the Gregstar.

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Planedawn Orphans

It is such the nature of humanity that we every so often reinvent Homestuck 

Genre: Found Family, Vaguely fantasy?, multiverse game (Kinda)

Touchstones: Planescape (they don't mention it but I imagine Torment's party specifically was probably a big inspiration), Dark Heart of the Dreamer

What is this game?: Game's a generous term, Planedawn Orphans is a system-agnostic campaign kit meant to introduce a general story loop to any system

How's the gameplay?: Planedawn Orphans has the gameplay of any system you'd like!.. ok that's not EXACTLY it, but planedawn orphans has only small amounts of gameplay on its own, instead what it adds is a storyline to any system, somewhat similar to a module, but entirely system agnostic, and left open ended for modification, we'll get into what exactly the plotline is in the next session, but for now just know that most of Planedawn's gameplay is entirely focused on players taking actions to add drama into instanced levels, as the game focuses on the players hopping between different themed planes

What's the setting (If any) like?:  This is where the going gets interesting, the players are all Orphans, people from different planes of reality who, for one reason or another, were abandoned by their own world, and left to wander in the big city between worlds, they have recently met an incredibly powerful patron who promises to create a new world, one where they can live peacefully without prejudices of their previous world. Planedawn Orphans' primary setting are the different universes the players will have to explore to gather the parts for their new world, maybe they need to get a bag of wind so that their universe has oxygen, or the blood of a dead god to create life, that sort of thing! there's 13 aspects by default, meaning that a game will usually by default have 13 "chapters" as the players explore different universes, the game's episodic nature also lends itself to round-robin style play, with one player taking over the role of GM in a rotating format every realm.

What's the tone?: Planedawn Orphans treats on themes of found family, hope in a desolate place, and friendship between unlikely people.

Session length: Uh, depends on what you're running it on ig?

Number of Players: 3-5, round robin parties can likely support more players

Malleability: Infinite, I guess, since its not really a game 

Resources: You don't really NEED resources for this but the game features some trackers to keep track of clocks and collected artifacts

Ok so this isn't REALLY a game, this is a campaign resource for running a specific type of campaign, it as such shouldn't really Be here, but Planedawn is also one of my favorite... ttrpg things of all time, and I think more people need to be aware of it! it's a really really fun time if you can find a good game to run it in, I recommend Lancer! there's 13 artifacts, which maps exactly into a 0-12 lancer campaign

[divineerdrick]

Homestuck Beyond Canon Upd8 for October 8, 2024

Here we are! This might be the end of the current story arc, and we'll finally get to see if Vriska successfully makes it out of this. I was also informed a while back that today is the one year anniversary of the HICU taking over the comic.

Before I jump in, I had a theory I wanted to put out there. I was thinking more about how Vriska was always destined to go down these two paths and what that might mean. Now we know she had different fates than the two we saw. In fact, we saw a third indirectly. We saw it when an Aradiabot from a doomed timeline where Gamzee snapped early revealed a surprise final piece of Doc Scratch's code. That reveal was a book Gamzee made in the blood of the other trolls. And Vriska's blood is in there.

But only two Vriskas are ever seen in the bubbles, probably because the Vriskas that survive to their creation are always the same. Do any Vriskas lost along the way matter? We don't really know. They might still be important, but the lion share of Vriska appears to be split into two fates.

Now, thinking back to the epilogues (I know that can be hard) Dirk describes the process of becoming a fully realized or ascended God Tier.

And some of you just saw where I'm going with this.

Dirk became a full God of Heart first because of how connected he was to his splinters. Rose followed as her continued explorations of fortune connected more and more of her deviating paths through Paradox Space. And Dave . . . well he got a very Dave ascension. Honestly with how well he handled the multiple version of himself running around, an Obama pep talk was likely more than what was needed.

But there's only two Vriskas that need to come together.

If Vriska can accept herself, the team on Candy C will have a fully realized and ascended Thief of Light on their side. One that has already exerted narrative control before! That might be enough to help fix a lot. And if Vriska has anything to say about it, and you know she will, things might really start moving.

News Upd8

We get a team post this time! They're mostly just excitedly gushing about the milestone and some of the things that have happened in the past year. But they also reminding us the first big flash is coming. I honestly can't wait!

James mentions that this is not originally what was planned and that they were just going to make a bunch of connected shorts originally. I still like stuff like that, but I'm glad they were able to get this going again.

There's a lot of thank yous from the team. But I still feel like I want to thank them for continuing this in such a wonderful way. This comic and this community has been really important to me for a while now, and I'm eternally grateful there are still "semi-official" things coming from it.

James does give us a bit of an outline on the progress for EOA1. It sounds like things are still early, but they're hoping to hit one of the "funny numbers". The next one will be 11/11 or one of the kid's birthdays. But 413 sounds like a good project deadline to me.

They're continuing with two upd8s this month, so I'll need to try to make sure I catch the next one in a more timely fashion.

Upd8

We've cut away from Vriska. As the news said, no more VN for us. We return to Candy Earth C and our stressed out adults.

Kanaya has left on her own for now. Her fury has not yet been satisfied it seems, with what Rose took as an implied threat from her. Also, I just noticed the subtle space symbol in Jade's shield. Nice touch!

Still a lot of justly tense and uncomfortable conversation going on. Jade really wants to fix things. She feels like she's the one to blame and she needs to make things right. But Rose doesn't particularly seem receptive. I don't think she wants Jade's help. Also, there's a mention of Rose losing her temper over a conversation about her mom. I think it's mostly meant as a little nod to how much older they all are and that things have happened that we never got to see. But I can't help but wonder how things went down.

Yeah, this is pretty painful. Jade really wants to do the right thing, but Rose has formed her own opinion of the best course of action. And now she's trying to convince Jade it doesn't involve her.

Hamster guy? I'm pretty sure I'd remember hamster guy so this has to be something new.

Honestly, Jade is sounding a bit more mature than Rose here. It's painful, but she's right. Reality has very little to do with a person's "truth." The only sensible path to change a person's perspective is usually the empathetic one where you focus on understanding where they're coming from. Even then, all you can usually accomplish is being someone they might turn to when an external event breaks the reality in their head.

Speaking of personal truth's, Jade has been feeling that so many of her friends haven't really cared about what's going on. That might have been a little true for Dave, but I think she got a completely wrong read on John. John very much cared, he just wasn't good at doing anything about it. That's one of the reasons he suffered from depression, one of the reasons he was always trying to fix something or do something important. But between the glimpses of her in the epilogues and the credits, I get the impression she was constantly trying to reach out to him. From her perspective, John's depression might have seemed to be apathy.

But big surprise the one that grew up so isolated is having the hardest time getting a read on people.

THE ART!!!

Urgh! Oh this is bad! Rose is just suppressing everything she's dealing with. Admittedly, there's a lot going on right now. But it sounds like she's not trying to process any of the stuff that's been occurring on this crazy version of Earth C. She especially can't seem to deal with Roxy, and that's apparently been causing more problems than we've seen.

I'm not sure I agree with Rose here. I don't believe an absolute truth has to be derived from authority. But then, to the best of my knowledge, I don't live in Paradox Space. It's hard to hold to the truth of observable reality when it can be so easily changed and manipulated.

Interesting . . . Rose has turned to her powers as a form of coping mechanism. As things get hard, she begins trying to sort out all the "meandering side-paths." The rote of it, the monotony, is soothing to her the way a "cozy game" is to me. And if she's successful, she gains insight and even something to look forward to.

Oh no! Rose has seen a future where Calliope will sacrifice herself to try and save everything! And worse it doesn't work! Things are apparently more dire than we thought, and that's with Jane running around in Condesce mode!

Huh! If I'm parsing that right, Rose is going to suffer a mortal wound but one that won't trigger the God Tier clock. Instead she'll have to recover like a normal person will. Ouch! This immortality really isn't all it's cracked up to be.

And the other shoe drops! The reason why Rose agreed to something like this, the reason she's been so cold and distant. While she's recovering from the bullet wound, Kanaya will be alone. With what she's done, Kanaya will have the impetus to seek independence. She hasn't seen the end result, but she believes Kanaya will have a more fulfilling life this way. She's been driving her wife away so this Kanaya won't be left in paralyzed mourning the way Meat Kanaya seems to be. That is a horribly dangerous game, and one almost guaranteed to backfire.

But apparently Rose doesn't think any of it matters. Like Dirk, she thinks this universe is irrelevant and doomed. She knows what John needed to do, and here John didn't do it. She's hasn't quite gotten to the optimistic point of nihilism, but the apparent lack of meaning is providing her with some relief.

Do I honestly need to say anything here!

Rose has been able to play the rain for a while now. But as her powers have matured, she's gotten better at it. Though this makes it sound not so much like she's playing it, as dancing to a tune beyond her control. But then, this Rose doesn't feel the need to control anything.

Can you imagine accidentally bumping head first into a figure of myth and legend?

Karkat and Kanaya have a bond that goes well beyond anything they ever developed with their human lovers. Even if Karkat's power wasn't literally over the bond of Blood, they've survived so much together it honestly wouldn't matter. And right now, Karkat's opinion of the humans that sat on the sidelines while their Troll friends needed them isn't exactly high.

COME ON!!!

Jane is still processing her conversation and some of things that came of it. Does Jane think she could have convinced more of her friends to stand with her? Does she think she could have saved Dirk from the fate he chose?

Also in a very real way she doesn't quite look human in that image. Even though I think this might be a human moment for her, she's made her visage, consciously or not, monstrous. The Condesce's crown is a collar around her neck.

Unfortunately she's decided that rather than learn from her mistakes, she might as well just plow on and build something new and better. She is a god after all.

Love how they're teasing out the reveal of what has come of Jake's epiphany.

I'm not posting that image. Even with my heavy use of spoiler tags, I'm not risking it.

Oh come on! You didn't make it a clean shot! Goddammit Jake!

Well that's one way to cut from that. I mean HOLY SHIT!!!

Jake appears to not be out of this yet. This almost feels like a callback to Vriska sitting on the beach after a failure. Can the big man recover from it?

And we end with Rose having just left Tavy and Yiffy with a letter and some snacks.

Wow! That was intense!

It legit seems like nothing, not even a bullet, is changing Jane's mind. And I mean, I know Jane is a god, but come on! Could Jake seriously not get a good clean shot off? Wow!

Y'know, honestly I can see it. Despite his awakening, he had to play it out like one of his movies. That was just enough time for Jane to realize what was going on and quickly dodge out of the way. Then, rather than quickly ending it, he had to quibble out an apology.

Honestly, I just don't think he was truly capable of doing it, so he sabotaged himself. He's just lucky that all the pummeling he's gone through has toughened him up enough that he might get another shot. That is if he doesn't get wiped out in whatever that cake-shaped, doomsday device she has in orbit does.

Fuck that was a ride. And a really tense one at that! Guess now we're waiting for next upd8 this month!